Passionate, loving, loyal, kind. Those Hopkins people
whose lives were cut tragically short on September 11 were
all that and more--much, much more.

Ronald James Vauk died in the defense of his country.
He didn't even know it was at war.

On September 11, Vauk, a supervisor in Hopkins's Applied
Physics Laboratory, was on his annual two-week Reserve duty
in the Navy Command Center at the Pentagon. He was the watch
commander, passing along information about the two jets that
had crashed into the World Trade Center. After American
Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, Vauk, a lieutenant
commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, was at first listed as
missing and later confirmed dead. He was 37 years old.

"Devoted to the service of his country"Ronald James Vauk, a
supervisor at Applied Physics Laboratory

A 1987 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Vauk served six
years on active duty as a submarine officer. He had been in
the Naval Reserve since 1993.

This year, his Reserve duty was scheduled for November. But
he pushed it up to mid-September because his wife, Jennifer,
is due to give birth to their second child around
Thanksgiving. Their son, Liam, is 3. On a late September
Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery, Jennifer accepted a
Purple Heart awarded posthumously to her husband.

"The thing that makes it most tragic is that Ron was very
devoted to the service of his country," says his supervisor
at APL, Art Turriff. "He took great care to find a job he
thought was very important in the Reserves, not just some
weekend task. He wanted to do something extremely
worthwhile."

Vauk also tackled important defense projects while working
for APL, where he was an assistant group supervisor in the
Submarine Technology Department. After joining Hopkins's APL
in 1997, he helped expand staffing and served on a number of
projects, including the Joint Biological Early Warning
System, a proposed network of biological agent sensors.
Outside of work, he found time to earn a master's in
technology management from the University of Maryland in
1999.

Vauk rarely got mired in unimportant details. He was
playfully antagonistic, sometimes razzing people to get a
rise out of them. He would not accept pat answers. "There
won't be a replacement for Ron Vauk," Turriff says.

Family was first and foremost, says his brother-in-law,
Chris DeBoy, of APL's Space Department: "Ron had to write a
bio when he was getting a Navy fitness check and write his
personal goals at the bottom. He put: Being the best father
and husband he could be."

As a watch commander at the Navy Command Center, Vauk was at
the nexus of the Navy's operations, in the event of a
crisis. At a joint Navy-APL ceremony on September 28 at the
Lab, several hundred colleagues from both institutions paid
tribute to the man. Captain "Sonny" Masso, past commanding
officer of NR Navy Command Center Detachment 106, was among
those who spoke. Said Masso: "Ron will live forever in our
hearts and will never be forgotten by his shipmates."

APL director Rich Roca spoke as well: "We consider it an
honor that he chose us as the people with whom he wished to
make his mark."

During the hourlong ceremony, Vauk was posthumously awarded
the Meritorious Service Medal and a Presidential Memorial
Certificate. Son Liam was presented with a small, polished
wooden box in which to keep his father's medals.

Vauk is also survived by his parents, Hubert "Cubby" and
Dorothy Vauk; four brothers, Charles, David, Gary, and
Dennis Vauk; four sisters, Teri Masterson, Celia Shikuma,
Lynne Caba, and Pat Vauk; his in-laws, Pat and Carol Mooney;
and other beloved family members, including numerous nieces
and nephews. Donations may be made to the Ronald James Vauk
Memorial Fund through First Mariner Bank at 1801 S. Clinton
St., Baltimore, MD 21224.

Vauk's brother, Gary, spoke for the family at the APL
ceremony: "What I'll remember best about Ron is his spirit,
his way of wrestling with life--always managing to come out
ahead. Few people can boast that they've made the most of
every single moment of every day." --Joanne Cavanaugh
Simpson

"Extraordinarily loyal"Glen J. Wall
'84

Friends and family of Glen J. Wall '84 and Matthew
O'Mahony '84 may derive some solace from knowing that
the two men perished together. For in life they were
inseparable friends who played basketball together at
Hopkins, worked together in Manhattan, traveled together,
and lived intermingled lives. They had done well in the bond
business, which permitted annual fishing trips to Alaska and
excursions to Paris with other friends from Hopkins. Both
bond traders were among the hundreds of Cantor Fitzgerald
employees who were lost on September 11 in the attacks on
the World Trade Center. O'Mahony was 39 years old; Wall was
38.

Both had majored in political economy at Hopkins and played
guard on the varsity basketball team. Friends describe
O'Mahony as a garrulous storyteller who made friends with
seemingly everybody. His wife, Lauren Murphy O'Mahony,
recalls, "He was a huge lover of life, a huge bon vivant.
He'd talk to anybody, and he really got to know a lot of
people. In New York, everybody who knew him called him the
most famous non-celebrity in Manhattan."

Andy Schoenfeld '84 roomed with Wall and O'Mahony for two
years at Hopkins, and was in daily touch with them after all
three began working in bond trading in Manhattan: "Matt was
equally comfortable sharing a drink with the bum who begs in
front of Elaine's as he was singing songs at the piano with
[former U.S. Senator] Al D'Amato, both of which he did many
times. Strangely enough, in conversations recently Matt had
told us that if he died young we shouldn't be sad, because
he lived a happier, better, and fuller life than he could
ever have imagined."

"A huge loverof life"Matthew O'Mahony
'84

Lauren had celebrated her first wedding anniversary with
Matt two days before the attack. She recalls, "He packed
more in one day, to make sure he saw everything and met as
many people as he could. He was just a really good person.
He brought a lot of life to a lot of people."

In the early 1990s, Wall and O'Mahony were partners in an
Upper East Side sports bar named The Polo Grounds, at 83rd
Street and Third Avenue. Wall was the quieter of the two.
"Well, almost anyone was quieter than Matt," says Adam Levy,
who was the third partner in the bar. Wall's friends
describe him as a magnet for people, and extraordinarily
loyal. Recalls Levy, "We remained close, talk-every-day
friends for the rest of our lives."

"Glen was always a guy people wanted on their team,"
Schoenfeld recalls. "If you were going to a function or a
party with Glen, you had to prepare to leave the second you
arrived, because it would take hours. He had to say goodbye
to every single person. You'd plan to leave at 10:30 and you
wouldn't leave until midnight. Whenever I went out with Glen
I would wake up the next morning wondering why I had a
hangover when I'd only had two glasses of wine. I finally
realized that it was because he never let my glass get even
half empty."

Says Adam Levy, "It's just a devastating loss, because these
were two of the brightest lights I'd ever met."

Glen Wall is survived by his wife, Diane, and their two
daughters, Payton, 4, and Avery, 3. He also leaves behind
siblings Diane, Lynn, Gary, Kevin, and Brian. Donations in
his memory may be made to the Payton & Avery Fund, care of
Christopher Kearon, Prudential Suites, 940 Haverford Road,
2nd Floor, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010.

Matt O'Mahony is survived by his wife, Lauren, siblings
Karen, John, Robert, and Steven, and his mother Helen
O'Mahony Bradley. Donations in his memory may be made to the
Matthew O'Mahony Memorial Garden Fund, care of Sue Medoff,
Sunnyview, 140 Archbridge Road, Ghent, NY 12075.

Former Hopkins basketball coach Jim Amen recruited the two
to Hopkins. "If I were to tell their families anything," he
says, "I'd tell them that they were very good boys. They got
the best out of their lives. I know they're in a better
place." --Dale Keiger

"Kind and warm"John Sammartino, MS
'90

When colleagues walked into John Sammartino's office
in Rosslyn, Virginia, the first thing they noticed was his
sense of openness. With a slight turn of his head,
Sammartino would smile a welcome to the inevitable
interruption, "John, do you have a minute?"

Sammartino, who earned his master's degree in electrical
engineering through Hopkins's Part-time Programs in
Engineering and Applied Science, was working as an engineer
at XonTech Inc., a research and development firm involved in
defense issues. With a colleague from his office, he boarded
American Airlines Flight 77 at Dulles, which was later
hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. He was 37 years
old.

A good listener and a gentleman, a patient teacher and a
doting father, he readied his 4-year-old daughter, Nicole,
for daycare in the morning and gave her baths and read her
stories at bedtime. His daughter now keeps two photos of him
on her bed.

"He was just kind and warm and made people feel comfortable
almost immediately," says his wife, Debbie Rooney. "He could
sit down and talk to anybody from any background. He was a
compassionate, dedicated father and husband. Just a really
wonderful person."

Born in New York City, he came to Washington in the 1980s.
He earned a bachelor's degree from George Washington
University in electrical engineering, and was hired out of
college into the tactical electronic warfare division of the
Naval Research Lab, where he met his future wife on a
company softball team.

The Sammartino family lived in Annandale, where John, a
woodworker with a penchant for making bookcases and
cabinets, had been expanding their kitchen. Over the Labor
Day weekend, family members had gathered for him to show off
the cabinets he had carved and hung with the help of his
83-year-old father, Frank.

His co-workers, in mourning, penned a series of remembrances
in electronic files. Wrote Jim McWilliams, senior engineer:
"There was nothing competitive about John in the workplace;
not only was he pleased to see his fellow employees excel
... he continued to help them along the way."

Added Bob D'Alessandro, program manager: "He could tackle
any task, dig into the details, figure things out and make
them work. John was a stickler for doing things right."

And Jack McCalman remembered: "On Monday, September 10th, as
John was signing out on our sign-out board, he said to me,
'Jack, I'll see you on Friday.' The Friday has come and gone
and so has John. Boy, do I miss him."

Sammartino is also survived by his mother, Ann, and sister,
Valerie Personick, and brother, Frank Sammartino Jr.
Donations are being accepted by the Springfield United
Methodist Church, 7047 Old Keene Mill Road, Springfield, VA
22150. The memo line should read: the John Sammartino
Memorial Fund. --JCS

"In awe of his new son"Paul J. Friedman
'78

Management consultant Paul J. Friedman '78 spent much
of his life trying to understand what drives consumers. On
the last full day of his life, his efforts to divine desire
fell closer to home: Would baby son Rocky prefer a trip to
Starbucks or a walk in the park? Rocky liked Starbucks.

The next day, Friedman, of Belmont, Massachusetts, died
aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it hit the World
Trade Center. He was 45, and on a business trip to Warner
Brothers in Los Angeles. He leaves behind family and friends
who will miss his dry sense of humor, his brilliance, and
his warmth.

"One of my colleagues described Paul as a computer who wore
tennis shoes. Paul had a very innate ability to be human and
process these very detailed types of information," recalls
Mark Friedman, a longtime friend who was his supervisor at
Emergence Consulting of Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Paul Friedman earned his bachelor's in psychology from
Hopkins, then went to work for Bell Labs in Whippany, New
Jersey, and earned a master's degree in engineering at the
University of Michigan and an MBA from New York University.
He also had worked for American Management Systems, Cap
Gemini Ernst & Young, and Fleet Bank, in part helping
companies create databases for their customers' spending
habits and service needs. He tempered such highly demanding
data crunching by taking artistic photographs of buildings
and collecting tacky snow domes and antique Avon bottles
shaped like cats and dogs.

Friedman was at a turning point in his life. "He flew on
Tuesday because he wanted to have a three-day weekend with
his family," says his sister Amy Radin. "He was trying to
balance his life. He spent the last day, on Monday, playing
with the baby."

Paul and his wife of 10 years, Audrey Ades, adopted their
son from Korea last May. They gave him a formidable name:
Richard Harry Hyun-sou Friedman. Friedman wanted his boy to
be known as Rocky.

Paul Friedman was in awe of his new son. A few weeks before
he died, he gave his sister Meryl, who is pregnant with her
first child, a dissertation on the proper way to change a
diaper. Says Mark Friedman, "He really felt that Rocky knew
who he was." The baby's simple touch could bring "tears to
Paul's eyes. It was really the first thing where no logic
could get into the equation. It was a baby."

Paul Friedman is also survived by his mother, Selma
Friedman; his siblings and their spouses, Iris and Alan
Pollack, Amy and Mitchell Radin, James and Krista Friedman,
and Meryl Friedman and David Price; and his beloved nieces
and nephews, Jared, Molly, Hal, Jonah, and Allison.

Family members are setting up a charitable fund to provide
support for Friedman's favorite causes, which include
foreign adoptions, the environment, and the arts. The family
also is considering creating a physical tribute to visit,
perhaps a piece of playground equipment with a plaque.
Donations may be sent to the Paul J. Friedman Charitable
Foundation Inc., James S. Friedman, Esq., P.O. Box 1,
Livingston NJ 07039.

His sister Meryl has decided to name her child after her
brother. Says Meryl: "I'm glad that there is somebody to
have as a namesake." --JCS

"One you could trust"David W. Nelson
'73

David W. Nelson had survived attacks before. After
graduating from Hopkins in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in
behavioral sciences, he went to work for Baltimore's social
services department. During his yearlong stint, he was shot
in both legs in a random act of violence. He recovered from
those wounds.

On September 11, the father of two worked as a senior vice
president for Carr Futures, a global institutional brokerage
firm with offices on the 92nd floor of the World Trade
Center's north tower. Due at a meeting in uptown Manhattan,
he never made it. He was 50.

His sister Barbara Goldman, a counselor at an elementary
school near Ballwin, Missouri, heard the news from their
father, Warren Nelson.

"I've worked through grief with people as a counselor,"
Goldman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch soon after
the attacks. "But I've never understood what it means to
lose a brother. Especially a brother so kind as David."

David Nelson's first love was music. When he inherited his
parents' station wagon to drive from St. Louis to Baltimore
around 1970, among the belongings stuffed in the back was
his beloved French horn. He would later play for the St.
Louis Philharmonic Orchestra and the symphony in Evansville,
Indiana. He briefly studied music at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston.

In 1980, David Nelson went to work for his father's company,
Clayton Brokerage, in St. Louis. "It was a complete change
of life for him. From music and social services to going to
work for a brokerage company," says his father. "What he
found out was that the demand for French horn players is far
smaller than the supply."

While working for Clayton, David Nelson caught the eye of
Dean Witter, and landed a job in that firm's offices in New
York (the company later became Morgan Stanley Dean Witter,
and the commodity division was sold off as Carr Futures).
His New York job took him far from the neighborhoods of St.
Louis and Baltimore--to Paris, London, Zurich, and into
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Middle Eastern nations. "He
had customers in the Middle East who have called to say what
a great person he was and to say that this [the terrorism]
isn't Islam," Warren Nelson says.

Adds David's mother, Betty: "Someone wrote that there aren't
many men in this world you can trust, but he was one of
them. What was special about David, I think, is that he was
sensitive to other people's feelings."

David Nelson lived in Brooklyn with his wife, Elizabeth
Crawford, a New York artist who specializes in meditative
still life oil paintings. In the weeks before her big art
gallery opening, on September 7, Nelson took their two
children, Frederick, 4, and Ingrid, 8, to a ranch in Oregon
to give his wife a chance to ready her show. She hosted the
opening at the Jack Shainman Gallery in Manhattan without a
hitch. A day later, the couple celebrated their 17th wedding
anniversary.

David Nelson is also survived by his brother, Robert Nelson,
and sister Marcia Wilson. Memorial donations are being
handled by the Carr Futures World Trade Center Memorial
Fund, account number 1893629, The Northern Trust Company,
Attn. Robin D. Levin, B-2, 50 South LaSalle St., Chicago, IL
60675. The company's Web site is
www.carrfutures.com.

Carr Futures lost 69 employees in the terrorist attack. In
an open letter to employees, families, and all Americans,
the company's chairman and president wrote: "The tragedy and
loss of human life is almost unbearable." --JCS

"If you had his friendship, youhad a
lot."Thomas Cahill
'86

Together, the brothers Cahill rode the school bus, joined a
fraternity at Hopkins, started successful careers, and moved
within blocks of each other in their New Jersey hometown.
Together, they spent weekends fishing on a boat named for
their grandfather, reveling in the strong bonds of family.

Jim Cahill '85, older by just 17 months, could not have
imagined he would deliver his beloved brother Tom's eulogy,
but in a September 22 memorial service in Franklin Lakes,
New Jersey, he did his best.

Recalling the words Sen. Edward M. Kennedy used to remember
his brother Bobby, Cahill told the more than 800 friends and
family who gathered that his younger brother "loved life
completely and lived it intensely."

Tom Cahill '86 worked as a bond broker at Cantor
Fitzgerald, in New York's World Trade Center. He had
followed in what his brother calls the "family business,"
immersing himself in finance as his grandfather and father
had before him. That Tuesday morning, Tom was excited about
a new position with another firm in the city; he was set to
start work there Thursday. On Friday, September 14, he would
have celebrated his 37th birthday.

But the close-knit Cahill family is not dwelling on
"what-ifs." Their remembrances are of a handsome young man
who loved to play, worked hard, and knew how to be a true
friend. "My brother gave his friendship totally, 100
percent," says Jim Cahill. "He was very loyal. If you had
his friendship, you had a lot."

"He just made friends with everybody," says sister Kathy
Psirogianes, who lived around the corner from Tom. "There
was this homeless guy in New York City, and Tom used to take
care of him like he would take care of me. He took this guy
to Barneys to buy him shoes. He treated people the way they
should be treated. He was very humble--he loved his friends
and having fun, but he had a more spiritual side."

At Hopkins, Tom Cahill considered a premed track like his
older brother--Jim Cahill is now an orthopedic surgeon at
Hackensack University Medical Center--but ended up studying
economics. The brothers were in Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity
together, and Jim remembers his brother's easy grace,
describing him as a "very gifted tennis player" who made the
varsity team.

After college, Tom followed his father's path to Wall
Street--the senior James Cahill was a bond salesman. Tom
skied with friends in Utah, went golfing in Ireland, and
fished with his brother and other pals on the Bucky
C, named for grandfather William Cahill.

His sister remembers how much he loved his young nieces and
nephews, always ready to splash around in his pool with them
or give them rides on his back. "Tommy hadn't found the
right girl, but he would have made a great father."

In keeping with Tom's love of children, contributions can be
made to the Don Imus-WFAN Pediatric Center for Tomorrow's
Children, a foundation for children with cancer at
Hackensack University Medical Center, 30 Prospect Ave.,
Hackensack, NJ 07601.

Tom Cahill is survived by siblings Jim Cahill, Kathy
Psirogianes, Kerry Kerin, and Chris Cahill; parents James
Cahill and Kathleen Cahill; and four nieces and nephews.

Jim Cahill says his brother and the others lost in the
attacks should be remembered as patriots. "There are no
words that can capture this for the country, let alone for
each family. It's an act of evil. But hopefully these people
who have sacrificed their lives will save the lives of
millions. They are all heroes." Especially Tom, adds Jim. "I
was proud to be his brother." --Mary Mashburn

Sneha Philip '91Missing since before the attacks

Like so many others, the family of Sneha Philip '91 is
dealing with the loss of a loved one. But Philip has been
missing from lower Manhattan since Monday, September 10, the
day before the terrorist attacks, making her disappearance a
terrible mystery with few clues.

Philip, a resident in internal medicine at St. Vincent's,
Staten Island, had a precious day off that Monday. A
security camera captured her leaving her Battery Park City
apartment at 5:15 p.m. She purchased some items at a store
near the World Trade Center about 7:30; a saleswoman recalls
Sneha shopping with a woman no one has been able to
identify.

"She never came back to the house," said her husband, Ron
Lieberman, an emergency room resident at Jacobi Medical
Center. "We're still searching [for] clues to find out where
she was that night." Lieberman and Sneha's family have
appeared on talk and news shows, hoping someone will come
forward with information. The family has posted fliers
around the city and put up a Web site,
www.imagilab.com/sneha.

Suzy Bagga '91, matron of honor in Philip's May 2000 wedding
and a close friend and Phi Mu sorority sister, talked about
her friend's days at Hopkins. A Writing Seminars major,
"Sneha was interested in literature and poetry, but she
finished the background for going to medical school. She was
definitely the smartest person I knew at Hopkins."

Says Lieberman, "The hope is that she's somewhere that we
can find her." --MM